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Road Mortality of Dragonflies (Odonata) in a Great Lakes Coastal Wetland

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Road Mortality of Dragonflies (Odonata) in a Great Lakes Coastal Wetland The Great Lakes Entomologist Volume 32 Numbers 1 & 2 - Spring/Summer 1999 Numbers Article 9 1 & 2 - Spring/Summer 1999 April 1999 Road Mortality of Dragonflies (Odonata) in a Great Lakes Coastal Wetland Samuel Keith Riffell Michigan State University Follow this and additional works at: https://scholar.valpo.edu/tgle Part of the Entomology Commons Recommended Citation Riffell, Samuel Keith 1999. "Road Mortality of Dragonflies (Odonata) in a Great Lakes Coastal Wetland," The Great Lakes Entomologist, vol 32 (1) Available at: https://scholar.valpo.edu/tgle/vol32/iss1/9 This Peer-Review Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of Biology at ValpoScholar. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Great Lakes Entomologist by an authorized administrator of ValpoScholar. For more information, please contact a ValpoScholar staff member at [email protected]. Riffell: Road Mortality of Dragonflies (Odonata) in a Great Lakes Coastal 1999 THE GREAT LAKES ENTOMOLOGIST 63 ROAD MORTALITY OF DRAGONFLIES (ODONATAJ IN A GREAT LAKES COASTAL WETLAND Samuel Keith Riffell 1 ABSTRACT Although road mortality of vertebrates has been well studied, road mortal­ ity of invertebrates has rarely been studied or considered in management scenarios. Mackinac Bay is an extensive coastal wetland in northern Michi­ gan. It is bordered by a two-lane paved highway that separates the marsh, where dragonflies defend territories and breed, from the adjacent forest where dragonflies forage and rest. During mid-summer of 1997, daily collec­ tions of dragonfly corpses from the road and road edge were used to estimate daily mortality rates and sex ratios among casualties. Daily mortality was highly variable, ranging from 10 to 256 casualties per kilometer. Sex ratios among casualties were generally male-skewed (60% or higher). Life-history differences between the sexes present a parsimonious explanation for male­ specific mortality. Mortality was even or female-skewed for some species, and impacts of road mortality may be more severe in populations where mortality is female-skewed. More research about the effects of roads on dragonflies is warranted because dragonfly populations are small relative to many inverte­ brates and are restricted to wetland habitats which are being degraded or de­ stroyed in many regions. Wildlife mortality from collisions with motor vehicles along roads is a com­ mon phenomenon and a serious management concern. In some regions, road­ kills are the primary source of mortality for large mammals (Lalo 1987, Har­ ris and Gallagher 1989), and road-kills can be a substantial source of mortality for birds (Forman 1995, Ashley and Robinson 1996), amphibians (e.g. van Gelder 1973, Fahrig et al. 1995, Ashley and Robinson 1996), and reptiles (Rosen and Lowe 1994). Over time, road mortality can create geneti­ cally disjunct subpopulations (Merriam et al. 1989), depress population sizes (Rosen and Lowe 1994, Fahrig et al. 1995), and alter the size- and age-struc­ ture of populations (Rosen and Lowe 1994). Consequently, road mortality data have been incorporated into predictive models (e.g. grizzly bear; Doak 1995), and management schemes (e.g. road underpasses for Florida pan­ thers; Harris and Gallagher 1989) for many vertebrate species. However, even the most basic data about road mortality is exceedingly scant for aquatic invertebrates as well as terrestrial invertebrates (see Table 1 for a summary) despite anecdotal evidence that extremely higb numbers of inver­ tebrates can be killed on roads. The importance of road mortality in aquatic invertebrates has most likely been ignored because of their life-history traits. Most groups of aquatic in­ lDepartment of Zoology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824. Published by ValpoScholar, 1999 1 The Great Lakes Entomologist, Vol. 32, No. 1 [1999], Art. 9 0­ ~ Table 1. Road mortality rates for invertebrates from other studies with selected rates from this study for comparison. Invertebrate Taxon Study Duration Events # Road Length Mortality Rate PUBLISHED MORTALITY RATES Beckemeyer ....., I Odonata: A. junius 1 day 1 9 ~ 0.5 km 45.00 f km (day" m G) ;;0 Seibert and Conover (1991) m All Insecta 14 months 50 1069 1.6km 13.36(kmf ~ All Odonata 14 months 50 22 1.6km 0.28/km ( s;: ?\ m Munguira and Thomas (1992) (J> All Bu Lterflies 44 days 4 144 1.2km 30.00 (km (day" m Z DRAGONFLY MORTALITY RATES AT MACKINAC BAY b s: All Odonata 42 days 26 1140 0.5 km 87.691 km 1day o L. quadrimaculata 42 days 26 312 0.5 km 24.00 Ikm I day 5 E..~pingera 42 days 26 199 0.5 km 15.311 km (day G) .....,Vi aConverted from an estimated 72 per mile of 4 lane highway based on sampling - 0.5 km of a single lane (see Beckemeyer 1996). bCalculated assuming each of the 50 sampling events represents 24 hours ofmortality. cCak'Ulated assuming each of the 4 sampling events represents 24 hours of mortality. However, Munguira and Thomas (1992) demon­ strated that corpses did not disappear after 2 weeks time, and assumed the 144 carcasses represented the entire 44 days of mortality. ~ Using this assumption, the mortality rate would be much lower (2.72 km I day). W I'V z ::> 9<> I'V https://scholar.valpo.edu/tgle/vol32/iss1/9 2 ==-___= __iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii ___________________________ ,.-_ Riffell: Road Mortality of Dragonflies (Odonata) in a Great Lakes Coastal 1999 THE GREAT LAKES ENTOMOLOGIST 65 sects with winged adult stages are highly fecund with naturally high mortal­ ity (Wallace and Anderson 1996), and have a synchronized emergence of short-lived adults which fly primarily at night (Trichoptera caddisflies; Wig­ gins 1996) or breed in mass swarms (e.g. Ephemeroptera mayflies; Edmunds and Waltz 1996). A common assumption is that road mortality of adults has little potential to impact population dynamics of a species with this combina­ tion of life-history traits. This assumption, however, has not been tested, and not all groups of aquatic insects (i.e. Odonata) share these traits. Dragonflies differ from many groups of aquatic insects in several ways. Dragonfly populations are relatively small compared to other aquatic inver­ tebrates, and emergence of adult dragonflies is usually over a period of weeks or even a month or more (Corbet 1962). Adults are long-lived (up to 10 weeks; Corbet 1980) and reproductively active for a large portion of that time, and flight occurs primarily during dayli ht hours. Consequently, mor­ tality from collisions with vehicles may affe populations more se­ verely than other aquatic insect groups. Couple the destruction and degradation of wetlands that is occurring in many regions, the effect of road mortality on small or disjunct populations of dragonflies could be substan­ tial. I investigated the extent, species composition and sex ratio of road-killed adult dragonflies at a freshwater coastal wetland along the northern shore of Lake Huron. A major two-lane highway borders the wetland, separating the upland forest from the wetland itself. Because dragonflies, like most aquatic insects, depend on terrestrial habitat during the adult part of their life cycle (Wallace and Anderson 1996), they must cross the highway repeatedly to ac­ cess the different parts of their required habitat. This situation is ideal for investigating road mortality in dragonflies and collecting information which will be important for guiding wetland management plans and directing fu­ ture research. MATERIALS A.1\fD METHODS Study Area. Mackinac Bay is located between the towns of Hessel and Cedarville in the eastern Upper Peninsula of Michigan immediately adjacent to a two-laned, paved highway (M-134). Mackinac Bay contains an extensive coastal wetland typi cal of the region. The vegetation of the wet meadow por­ tion of the wetland was predominately tussocks of Carex stricta, Carex aquatilis and Calamagrostis canadensis interspersed with pockets of stand­ ing water and shrubs. The wet meadow then graded into homogenous stands (without tussocks) of Carex lasiocarpus. Scirpus acutus interspersed with patches of Typha angustifolia (D. M. Albert and T. M. Burton, unpublished data), Pontederia cordata, and floating vegetation (Nuphar and Poto­ nwgeton sp.) dominated the deeper-water portions of the Two small streams run through the marsh and empty into Mackinac Bay. The road (M-13'i) was a two-Ianed, asphalt highway leI to the northern coast of Lake Huron in the ea Michigan. It was adjacent to the coastal wetland at Mack Bay. The high­ way ran parallel to the junction of the wet meadow and the forested part of the wetland such that it was bordered on the north by cedar and tamarack forest and to the south by the wetland. Traffic volume during 1997 along this portion of M-134 was estimated at 5743 vehicles per day (Michigan Depart­ ment of Transportation 1998, unpublished data), Dragonfly Sampling. I collected adult dragonflies which had been killed along M-134 at Mackinac Bay by walking a marked, 500 m segment of the Published by ValpoScholar, 1999 3 The Great Lakes Entomologist, Vol. 32, No. 1 [1999], Art. 9 66 THE GREAT LAKES ENTOMOLOGIST Vol. 32, No. 1 & 2 highway which directly bordered the wetland. During each I walked up one side of the road and down the other. I collected dragonfly corpses off the highway, off the gravel verge, and out of the bordering grass. I collected corpses on 26 different days between 27 June 1997 and 8 August 1997. Be­ cause I did not sample throughout the entire summer, early and late summer species were under-represented. All collecting was done between 1700 and 1900 EST. Dragonflies were identified to species level and sexed to the extent that the condition of the specimen allowed. Identifications were made using keys (Walker 1953, Needham and Westfall 1955, Walker 1958, Walker and Corbet 1975) or by comparison with reference specimens.
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